[Paperweight]

The US system is actually the worst of both worlds (capitalist and socialist). It combines heavy regulation costs, high litigation costs, high public funding, AND profiteering. Literally anything would be better. It's based on a government-protected trade union married to a system of geographic monopolies... yet it's still allowed to charge whatever it wants to a captive market - and then price discriminate on top! It's overburdened with CYA and barrier-to-entry regulations, yet falsely labelled as "free-market" and "capitalist" by its status-quo PR & lobbyists to get that political support. Same thing as Universities.

If it was truly "capitalist" then literally anyone would be free to hang a shingle and provide medical services (kind of like car mechanics), there would be competing professional accreditations (trademarked brands) as well (kind of like private technical certificates). But when the "market" is so perverted, "capitalism" (whatever is left of it) gets a bad rap because the incentives are fked to begin with.